I promised my sister I would probably ruminate on auto parts because I remember the days when my father would lean half into the motor of our old Ford (I guess it was a Ford). He would tinker and tinker and come up with a greasy part that he would soak in gasoline to get the grease off and then tinker some more to fix that part, or go buy a new part, and then put it all back together and make the old car run again. Remember? … We were coming back to the hotel in Saratoga Springs when Chuck said "remind me to check the oil." That isn’t good news, because he usually checks it every thousand or so miles and it’s fine. We’ve travelled 6000 miles already in that dear old van and she has 106,000 miles on her "new Michelins." The oil pressure was dropping to 0 and the check engine light was coming on at that point. So check the oil and it was fine, but I knew we had a day of "semi mountain" driving to get to Sugar Hill, New Hampshire ahead of us the next day. So I prayed a lot, and woke up and asked Chuck to take it to a dealer, and he said yes. So off we went and good thing too, it was drooping to 0 and asking us to check the engine. So there we were on I87 south, me praying for September 11 victims, and Chuck praying for that oil pressure and we got lost at the correct exit (you usually can see those big car lots from the expressway) (wrong). So we called them twice (Chuck sweating that light…) and finally pulled in and Chuck pulled right into the repair bay. Let them drive it out of there. He got a really nice service writer who showed us the Mall across the street and said she would call us about 3pm. So that means lunch and a movie which we never do on an afternoon…. Lunch at Olive Garden and a wild car racing movie called Getaway (if you like car chases with the Shelby race car – go see it!) It was a good, "wait for the car dealer to call" movie… and the phone rang. It’s fixed and not for an arm and a leg either. It was a "sender"… Chuck had said it might be the oil pump, but apparently technology depends on computers and that is the end of guys like my dad cleaning up greasy parts and "fixing" the cars themselves. I am possibly the last of the old fashioned people as I turn my cell phone off when I’m busy and I don’t text. I do use a computer though…  Well, we are on a beautiful farm on the top of a hill in Sugar Hill New Hampshire. Home of Linda and Joe McCarthy (they are of Irish and Italian descent!). Chuck is cleaning out the van… the laundry and bills and check book await and I guess I better get to "work" so I can get outside and paint. God bless you.
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